Obama commutes eight sentences in crack cocaine cases

President Barack Obama commuted the sentences of eight convicted crack offenders Thursday who had already served long prison terms, giving a push to his administration’s efforts to rein in what officials regard as overly harsh punishments imposed in drug cases.

The batch of eight commutations is modest when compared with more than 217,000 people serving time on federal charges, but it represents a major departure from Obama’s record on executive clemency during his first term when he granted only a single sentence reduction.

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Six of the eight prisoners granted commutations Thursday were serving life sentences. All had been behind bars for at least 15 years. Under Obama’s orders, most will of the inmates will be released in mid-April.

“Commuting the sentences of these eight Americans is an important step toward restoring fundamental ideals of justice and fairness,” Obama said in a statement, adding that they had been “sentenced under an unfair system” which gave far longer sentences for crack offenses than those involving powdered cocaine.

A law Obama signed in 2010 reduced that disparity, but was not retroactive. Changes in sentencing guidelines have also allowed inmates to have sentences reduced in some, but not all, cases.

“If they had been sentenced under the current law, many of them would have already served their time and paid their debt to society,” Obama said of the eight whose sentences he commuted. “Instead, because of a disparity in the law that is now recognized as unjust, they remain in prison, separated from their families and their communities, at a cost of millions of taxpayer dollars each year.”

Attorney General Eric Holder has made several moves to limit sentences in future drug prosecutions, by encouraging prosecutors to file charges that don’t automatically draw lengthy sentences. The administration is also supporting proposals in Congress to do away with mandatory minimums in many cases — a drive Obama also endorsed in his statement Thursday.

“In the new year, lawmakers should act on the kinds of bipartisan sentencing reform measures already working their way through Congress,” the president said.

Critics of current sentencing practices for drug offenders hailed Obama’s commutations, but urged more action by the administration on sentencing reform.

“This is a very important signal from the president himself that he’s prepared to ask his attorney general to look carefully at the cases of people in prison who have done a substantial amount of time,” said Margaret Love, whose client Clarence Aaron was among those who granted a commutation Thursday. “The president can signal his own personal commitment to support the attorney general in his efforts and this is a big signal.”

“We are excited for the families of those who were granted commutations today, and we are glad that President Obama recognized that these individuals were serving unnecessarily lengthy sentences … The bottom line, however, is that there are several thousand more where they came from,” Julie Stewart of Families Against Mandatory Minimums said, urging a systematic review of cases where drug offenders are serving lengthy terms.

“Even if President Obama used his clemency power energetically, which he has not, he simply wouldn’t be able to commute every excessive sentence,” Stewart said.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story contained inaccurate information about the scheduled release of two of the inmates who were granted commutations Thursday.